


Gravity

by JackyM



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode Style, F/F, M/M, also gay, cecilos - Freeform, maurelle - Freeform, this is very long haha ;w;
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:45:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackyM/pseuds/JackyM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The station's gravity isn't working. It's super inconvenient.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank my friends Regalli, for beta reading this fic, and logicalDemonness. for suggesting the Weather! <3

All you need is love. Love, knives, matches, limestone, and an underground bunker to hide in. 

Welcome to Night Vale. 

Okay, I know this is probably a bad way to start off tonight’s broadcast, listeners, but this can probably double as a complaint and also a public service announcement. And here at NVCR, we aim to give our listeners important public service announcements over the air to better the lives of our community. So I can probably complain about whatever I want, right? That’s totally okay with all of you, right?

...

I can’t tell what any of you are thinking or saying, as I am neither a psychic nor broadcaster in any form of telepathic media. I’m just going to complain, and maybe give myself a grin and two thumbs up just for good measure. 

Mistakes have been made, let’s say. Simple, human mistakes,  that define us as mortal humans and separate us from ethereal beings which are divine and free from all forms of binding that we refer to as humanity . Mistakes have been made and, for that reason, our gravity bill hasn’t been paid, so right now, everything in the station is suspended in midair, with varying amounts of feet between themselves and the floor, which also, is floating. I actually knocked my coffee mug off my desk earlier this morning, and it’s still floating about three feet off of the ground, the coffee free from the confines of where it belongs and suspended in midair. Or, it was suspended in midair, because I got one of those curly straws from the break room and drank it, and it actually tasted really good! The only person unfazed by this is Khoshekh, the station’s adorable cat and mascot, and his kittens. They really love how they can touch their scratching post with their paws now, instead of just looking at it and imagining scratching it with their long talons. Adorable! 

I asked Station Management about it, and they just made a loud, almost barking sound, and starting banging on the door of their office repeatedly until I left. I’m not really sure if this was a “go away, Cecil” kind of banging, or a “we’ll get to it, Cecil” kind of banging, or the more rare but still potential “he who consumes fifteen deer pelts will be given knowledge beyond mortal comprehension, Cecil” kind of banging. I really hope it’s the second kind of banging, though, because it’s really hard to sit down when that’s not physically possible. 

So yeah, a quick public service announcement from everyone here at Night Vale Community Radio; pay your gravity bill. Pay it, bury it behind your house, water it with lemon juice, and everything in your household will be done with _so_ much more ease. 

_ [sound of him shifting in his seat] _

Okay, this is getting _really_ annoying. I’d ask Intern Emile to go to the hardware store and pick up a few bags of gravity, but he just texted me to let me know he’s floating about twelve feet off of the ground. Oh, and, I guess he’s also getting dangerously close to the mouth in the ceiling in the break room. Hm. He should like...be careful? I guess? I don’t know, maybe “mouth” is just one of those slang terms teenagers use nowadays. Yeah, that’s probably the case. Definitely the case. Or, maybe it’s not the case, in which case, a preemptive condolence to the family of Intern Emile.

Let’s take a look at the news.

City Council recently released a press statement reminding citizens of Night Vale to stop hanging around the dog park, even if they are making no attempt to enter it.

“We get that you’re not trying to get into it,” they said, simultaneously, while remaining motionless on their backs in a circular position, “but anything could happen. Did you know most major car accidents happen only a few miles from ones’ house? Most major dog park accidents happen a few feet from its perimeter. Only a few feet. Just a few feet. A few, tiny feet. We’re measuring this in mouse feet. The tiniest feet. Anything could happen in a few tiny mouse feet. Anything. _Aaaaaanything could haaaaaaaappen_. _Aaaaaaaaaaaanyyyyyyyyyyyyything_.”

City Council then disappeared in a cloud of feathers and smoke, which set off the fire alarms and drenched all of the reporters present, completely dousing one of the reporters’ brand new flower poncho with red wine. Oh well. 

This press release was mostly made in light of the fact that several F100 jet engines were thrown over the walls of the dog park last week, causing several deaths and several thousands of dollars in repair costs for government vehicles that were observing the people hanging around the dog park, which, again, nobody should enter, think about, or hang around. The reason for the jet engines has not been investigated and never will be. 

Oh, also, the sky is literally falling. Sorry, I forgot to mention that. The sky’s literally falling down and beginning to crush anything beneath it. People are screaming outside and pointing at the descending heavens. There’s just so much else going on, I forgot to bring this up. But, oh yeah, the sky’s definitely falling, though. _Whaaatever_.

Listeners, here for a special announcement from Dark Owl records is Michelle Nguyen, and her gir--

**MICHELLE:** Oh my god, I told you not to use that word like, a long time ago, Cecil. Oh, also, everything in here is floating. I like it. Gravity is so overrated. 

**CECIL:** Right, right, sorry. No labels, I remember. And yeah, yeah, I know, our gravity bill wasn’t paid this month, but we’re working on it.

**MICHELLE:** Ewww, gross, don’t pay it. Gross. Paying for things is dumb too. And you should use labels, because nobody else is using labels, so labels are cool now. But like, not normal labels. The kind of labels you use a nail to stick to someone’s flesh and hammer into them so the label just kind of is plastered there so everyone can see it, and you can’t take it out without like, a drill. Not adhesive labels, because that’s what everyone has in mind and that’s not the kind of label we’re using anyways.

**CECIL:** So...like...you are using labels, then?

**MICHELLE:** If saying that makes you think you understand than like, sure. 

**CECIL:** So I...can call Maureen your gi--

**MAUREEN:** No! God. No. We’re not using those kinds of labels. We’re using our own labels. 

**MICHELLE:** Yeah. We’re calling ourselves invisible drone bees. Like, actual drone bees but you can’t see us. You’ll never see us. Seeing us is irrelevant. Seeing anything is irrelevant, because seeing other people always makes people think things that aren’t true about them. 

**CECIL:** Okay! Um, then, Michelle, and her invisible drone bee, Maureen, a former intern here at the station, who, by the way, was a fantastic intern and is a great kid.

**MAUREEN:** Meh.

**CECIL:** Michelle has an important announcement, about an event going on next weekend at Dark Owl Records. Michelle?

**MICHELLE:** Hmmm. Hmmmmm. Ahhh. Mmmm.

**MAUREEN:** Yeah. Hmm. Hmmmmmm.

**CECIL:** Uh...

**MICHELLE:** You know, I kind of don’t want to make this announcement anymore. It just doesn’t matter, like...ads are overrated because they bring attention to what you’re advertising. 

**CECIL:** That’s...kind of the point of advertising, Michelle. That’s why you paid for air time. 

**MICHELLE:** Did I? Huh. I decided money was intrinsically pointless and really just numbers assigned to gross, germ-covered cotton, and lately I’ve been burning it and using it in cigarettes I don’t smoke and just bury behind my house on top of my aunt’s horse’s grave. I didn’t mean to buy air time. Now I feel stupid and I think I should go sit in my aunt’s horse’s grave with the dollar cigarettes and think about how stupid everything is. 

**CECIL:** Oh, so, you won’t be making an announcement about the records you’ll be selling made from mountain goat hide, then? I mean, that makes sense, since I understand suddenly not caring about things, but--

**MAUREEN:** Damn it, Cecil!!!!

**MICHELLE:** Nobody was supposed to know about that. God. Now I need to cancel another event because it got publicly broadcasted by a community radio host who can’t stop talking about events that shouldn’t be publicly broadcasted, _Cecil_. 

**CECIL:** ...Sorry, Michelle. 

**MICHELLE:** I need to go now, and bury more money, and then start trading goat hide for pieces of driftwood carved into the shape of a bear paw. And then bury the driftwood with the money. Nobody’s invited. Well. One person is.

**MAUREEN:** That person doesn’t want to be called a person anymore, she wants to be called a collection of oxygen and carbon, no hydrogen.

**MICHELLE:** Correction, nobody’s invited. Goodbye, Cecil.

**CECIL:** Huh...well, then. Alright. Let’s hear a word from our sponsors!

You’ve been walking for a long time. Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Years? Millennia? You don’t know. You’ve lost all sense of time, all sense of knowing. Nothing is detectable anymore. Nothing can be understood. It just rolls out in front of you, a dusty path in front of you, endless. Your feet are caked with dust. Your eyes devoid of water. Your heart lacking a beat. Are you dead? You’ve given up wondering about such trivial things. You don’t think anymore. You keep walking. You keep walking along this dusty, never-ending path, unaware of your aches, your pains, your very humanity. You’ve given up on feeling anything at all. The sky is gray, the dirt is gray, everything is gray, bland, and uninteresting.

You’ve been walking for a long time. 

Kentucky Fried Chicken. Finger Lickin’ Good!

_Listeners_. Oh my gosh, _listeners_. Right now, right here in the studio, is someone very smart and scientific here to help with the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner! Say helloooo, Carlos.

**CARLOS:** Hello, Cecil! I am so excited to be helping you out on the radio today, and on such a great day for scientific observation in particular! Everything in here is floating, Ceece, it’s so exciting in here! Is that your coffee mug floating? Oh my gosh, Cecil, look, look at my gravity meter! It’s getting so active right now! Off the charts active! Cecil, look! Look at how much the indicator is moving, Cecil! Look!!!!

**CECIL:** I see it! That’s amazing, how can you read any of it and know what it’s saying? It just looks like squiggles placed at random points on the meter. Oh, and, Carlos, you were going to explain something about telescopes, right?

**CARLOS:** Did you know the gravity here is under a consistent flux, so that’s why we’re not floating towards the ceiling? It looks like gravity bills not only allow gravity, but also gravity stability! I mean, that’s what my gravity device says. The indicator is flying back and forth across a meter and telling me this. It’s what gravity indicators do, being scientific instruments and all. They need to have indicators and blinking lights, otherwise they won’t do their job as scientific indicators. 

**CECIL:** That’s so interesting! Neat, even. 

**CARLOS:** Neat, Cecil?

 **CECIL:** Neat, Carlos.

 **CARLOS** : Awww, pumpkin seed!!

 **CECIL:** It is neat, Carlos. It’s very neat! I love hearing you talk about sciencey things that you can use when doing science.

 **CARLOS:** Yeah! Oh, oh, you know what a really important scientific tool is? The telescope! They’re very important and can provide a lot of scientific data, as long as they’re prepared properly. You need to make sure they are well fed on a diet of frozen mice and turkey feathers, and you need to walk them for about fifteen minutes before using them. They get really grouchy when they don’t get a walk and might attack you if you try looking into their thick, clumped fur at the stars they reflect. Oh, and the other things they reflect, like mysterious lights and stories about our future that unfold in thousands of different directions and leave us confused and terrified of that which is to inevitably come. Telescopes can have nasty tempers but as long as you take care of them, they’ll be more than willing to comply. Our lab has a telescope, and it’s very polite as long as it’s well fed and walked regularly. We have our assistants walk it and haven’t had any problems.

 **CECIL:** Wow, that’s very informative! Telescopes sound reasonably easy to take care of. Definitely easier than washing machines.

**CARLOS:** _Much_ easier.

**CECIL:** Thanks so much for stopping in to talk about them. 

**CARLOS:** Thank you for inviting me to. You know I love being on your show. 

**CECIL:** I love you being on my show, too! Even if we’re both floating and can’t sit down in our...preferred position. Bye, bunny. 

**CARLOS:** Bye, poot.

Urgent news, listeners. I would guess, I mean. I haven’t been paying much attention, with all of the problems with the gravity. The sky is getting threateningly close to the earth, and I can hear it, right now, pressing against the ceiling of the station. Which is also really annoying, because that means we’ll have to bring repairs to the roof up with Station Management, and they’re _very particular_ about who repairs the ceiling. Uuuuugh. It’s not this station’s day. 

Listeners, while the sky falls and threatens to crush all beneath it, and while I attempt to get up once more to ask Station Management about the gravity bill getting paid, I take you all to..the Weather.

* * *

 

**[[WEATHER]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaDpitib_hQ)**

* * *

Well.

Listeners, I am feeling _great_! Station Management got the gravity bill sent out and paid for, and everything in the station is back to the way it is. The way it is abnormally, and normally, and whatever exists in between those two states. Everything is on the floor or floating the height it usually is, except for a certain adorable cat who is still in his regular position, purring and making the whole room shake. He’s so cute! Oh, and, good news! Intern Emile wasn’t swallowed by the mouth in the ceiling. He was fine! He was so high up in the air that he fell down really quickly when the gravity came back down and disappeared as soon as he hit the ground, and we’re not sure what happened to him. 

_Ooooooh._

_Oh no._

To the family of Intern Emile, we send our deepest condolences. He was a good intern. Not good with heights, though. Oh well. 

Oh, yeah, and the sky has been pushed back up. The Glow Cloud, all hail, did something about that. I don’t really remember, but like, it did something, something admirable and hail-worthy, that sort of something that pushes the sky back up to where it belongs. All hail, indeed.

Listeners, we live in a town where our lives are at stake every day. And yet, despite that, we manage to find other things that grab our attention. Although doom and horror looms over us as often as we breath, we still go about our lives. We pay our bills, we get our morning coffee, we talk to our significant others about our dinner plans. So what if the sky is falling? There’s other things going on, and we can’t let the threat of certain death get in the way of our daily life.

Stay tuned next for the sound of a lonely man rolling in a pit of dust, mourning the loss of a lifetime full of sojourns he never had and never, ever meant to make.

_ [the sound of a chair being reclined] _

Ahhhh. Gravity.

Goodnight, Night Vale.

Goodnight. 

 


End file.
